3:AM Magazine

Performance & other poems

By Mary Kasimor.

performance

she does not
fall asleep
next to
a pink
fish entering
the country
of
nod
from the sky
be
low
bending the waters
to the square drama
innocence
began without
a thought
encased in herself
soft as pudding
she spits out her world
a multitude
of dropped off lives
she spits out
herself born a
rosy oracle
born without instruction
without a reason
a tendril born from oxygen
a long stream from the past
in the rough miles
of darkness
she creeps
back into her skull
she links to
.com
she parts
the elbows of industry
blood circuits to the words
to the indifferent
foot that won’t talk back
planted to the surface
and the rain
on the edge of
precarious gravity
she crawls over form
performance sound
the arched irony of baby
past mattress shops
pawn shops burger
dive motels
she searches the world
inside her
head skin from trees
eyes outside windows
secure in self
storage her toes stay
attached rosy oracle
crawls below
the middle of somewhere
thinking from her body

grace in corners

temporary eggs fertilized
from solid life. in motel
darkness
motion sickness
shared. from data
god birth babies
born into complexity.
(plato says
they are unformed)
plastic birds on hangers
peck out eyes. strip
bare the bones
between layers of death
there is sex.
guns shooting off grace
yawning television images
and dishwater.
long lives with necessity
wander away
voluptuous our happiness
is a pill for itself
in different corners. morning
back to back the river
reborn into millions
of pieces.
facing our minds night stays
open all day
for this.

thirst

i
the words s tick in her body
between her bones
next to her liver
her kidneys her lungs
her heart
she is a blackbird of broken wings

ii
other expansions of loss
even the moon comes and goes
in a cadaver of words
dwelling in this cave
escapes and rises to the moon
milk is stuck in her throat
she wonders if that is thirst

iii
from another angle she lets herself in
she is a twin of bees
elephants
buffaloes
once she was a baby of wheat and fungi
an amoeba
with a rosy future

iv
ballet is not a spontaneous
dance form
the feet move and her toes
are clenched smiles
the statue flails in the air
and falls
there is only wisdom with sadness
for a broken dancer

v
her right leg sticks out in
front of her
facing east
the eastern star is a mystery
she is a prose poem
a blade of grass traveling
to the end of angst
an experimental hybrid
a strand of edges
a pig lead to slaughter
a girl tomato
she wanders a
way

excited plastics

god’s skeletons burning
delusions replaced the earth
I know. their limits
excited plastics
hiding in the rubble. I stayed and watched all day
I got the saints out of fire
they got manicures
the prizes were so many. prayers
the holiness of the oceans.
her naked body forms her beauty
displaying herself as damaged goods.
on her knees flogged and naked
she wins. incense and chanting candles
new age blonde
a new wardrobe
I just wanted to be mystical magic laser

like.

a list
of
fire

a new coyote

only.
multitudes
water
knitting plains
tattoos
thru
thin red
blood

touched by no one.
she drinks her gin alone
rollicking drunk
hung from the web like a spider.
splayed and displayed
(by dirty old men)
she does their laundry
she slits her wrists. with
broken jars
diamond edges
searching for herself in pagan phases.
she plays with holy cards of science
mimicking fire. where she was kept
medieval goodness. computerized
she knows it was sex.
the cancer was fierce through
out the land
learned by heart
little book of saints.

salt marsh

I eavesdropped because I was there
time pushed under more bodies—
and the amber wing had a buzz
understanding medusa’s madness
I cooked a dinner of tragic soup
nothing came after that
she stood by the counter and complained
a discomfort revealed itself on the edge
an inevitable sadness swept through
a black cave
and couldn’t find its way out
the argument was circular
I knitted feeling answers
my fingers touched a nerve
combing out the air like silk
tangled the computer logic
contained words—
poured out a feeling
a watery snake of blood
alive in the marsh
the water and salt
tasting of salt
I wander on roads
away from a place
toward the horizon’s edge
dreaming of dark
milk salvation

ABOUT THE AUTHORMary Kasimor has most recently been published in Yew Journal, Big Bridge MadHat, Horse Less Review, Altered Scale, Word For/Word, Posit, Otoliths, EOAGH, and The Missing Slate. She has three previous books and/or chapbook publications: Silk String Arias (BlazeVox Books), & Cruel Red (Otoliths), and The Windows Hallucinate (LRL Textile Series). She has a new collection of poetry published in 2014, entitled The Landfill Dancers (BlazeVox Books). She also writes book reviews that have been published in Jacket, Big Bridge, Galatea Resurrects, Poets’ Quarterly, and Gently Read Literature. She considers her work experimental—both her poetry and ink/water colors.